Hello, everyone. And welcome to our new course, Sustainable Agricultural Land Management. This course is going to be about sustainable production practices for agricultural food production. How farmers produce food economically, and, and make money. And also do it in a way that, protects the environment. I'm George Hocmuth. I'm a faculty member in the Soil and Water Sciences Department here at the University of Florida, and we're coming to you from the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. As I travel around this state and around this country I notice a bumper sticker on the trucks of farmers. It says that farmers feed the world. This is so very true, but did you also know that experts say that farmers will have to increase food production over the next two or three decades. This is to meet the increasing demand from increasing population on this globe. As you look over my shoulder you'll notice the students on the campus changing classes. This is, they're part of the younger generation around the world that will be faced with important decisions about food production. About issues and policies, and also about practices that farmers will use to produce food in a sustainable way. I grew up on a commercial vegetable farm in this country and I've watched my family grow vegetables trying to make the, the farm profitable dealing with weather vagaries and market problems. But I've also watched them adopt new production practices, that allow them to be more efficient in vegetable production and also production practices like soil conservation that we'll learn about in this course to protect the river that ran through our ran through our farm. Agriculture has changed tremendously over the last several decades. And if we look at it on a day to day or a week to week basis we may not see a great change. But I can tell you that over a career there has been tremendous changes in agriculture. In the way they produce more efficiently and also in the production practices that they've adopted to protect the environment. Through this career I've spent a lot of time working with our farmers particularly here in Florida, but in other states to help develop what we call now best management practices, that help farmers adopt production practices, particularly with fertilizer and water management, that help them become more efficient and protect the environment. Much of this information has been involved in, in put into extension education programs to help teach farmers these best management practices. I've used the information that my colleagues have developed at the University of Florida through their research and also colleagues all over this country and around the world in the courses that I teach. So, I bring this information that's science based into our courses to focus on agricultural production systems, and how we can make them more profitable, but also more protective of the environment. Your course is one such course where we have taken the information from this state, this country, and also even around the world, and brought it together. And hopefully, you'll benefit from this course. I'm hoping that everyone will at least have some small benefit and take home information from this course that will benefit you if you're a farmer or whether you're someone who helps farmers. In our course we're going to start out with some big picture topics. For example, we'll look at some water quality issues around this country and also around the world. And we'll look at some aspects farming systems. Where farmers are trying to address farming practices to make their practices more environmentally friendly. We'll talk a little bit about regulations that we use in this country to address water quality issues. And we'll look a little bit specifically about how agriculture fits in to this whole regulation arena. We'll go from there to looking more specifically about some aspects pertaining to production systems. We'll talk a little bit about soils and how they impact our farming practices and also environmental protection. We'll talk about nutrient management on farms. We'll talk about fates and flows, inputs and outputs of nutrients on our farms. If you haven't already been introduced, I'll introduce you to the concept of a nutrient budget, or a nutrient mass balance on farms. And we'll talk about how we can actually take a look at the quantity of nutrients that are coming and going in a farming system. And pinpoint parts in that fate and flow where we can apply best management practices. We'll take a look as specific fertilization management. We'll also take a look at specific water management and irrigation practices. And we'll try to bring all of this together at the end to talk about where we've come from and, and how we're progressing towards sustainability for agriculture. I also want to introduce you if you haven't already to the term triple bottom line, this will be a theme in this course. Triple bottom line simply means that when we make decisions or we try to determine best management practices, for example for farmers, that we make a broad determination and consideration of all of the impacting factors. So, we'd be taking a look at, for example, the three main parts of the triple bottom line. What society determines or desires for agriculture production systems? How the farmers need to produce crops and be economical, to make a profit, and also the practices that we use on farms to make sure that the, the food is produced in an environmentally friendly way. So social, environment, and economic are the basis for the triple bottom line and you'll see that will become a theme through this course. We will refer to it quite often. I want to let everyone know as we get started that this course is not about any one particular production system. So for example, we'll talk about conventional agriculture and we'll talk about, about organic systems in this course. It's also not about small farms and large farms, for example, I believe that most of the information that we'll talk about in this course and discuss would apply to whether you're a small farm with 20 acres or a large farm managing 20,000 acres. Also we are going to talk mostly about experiences from this country, looking at US agriculture, but I'm also, I've also attempted to bring in experiences and examples from other countries and from around the world. We're also going to focus on food production, crop systems, systems, in this course. There are a lot of other production systems, animal production systems, livestock, for example that we will not be able to include in the short time that I have with you. I also want to let you know that there are going to be many of you out there taking this course who will have a lot of experience in agricultural production, and maybe in the issues that we'll talk about. I hope through our discussion topics, those of you who have experience Will lend your experience and knowledge for the benefit of the course and for the students. We all can learn from each other through this course. Also, I'll let you know that some of the topics that we talk about, particularly when we talk about sustainability issues. There are and tend to be differences of opinion on these. And so I look forward to a hardy discussion of some of these issues as you all partake in the discussions on our, through our discussion board with the course. That will be a good way to bring new experiences, differing opinions, and knowledge to the table for the benefit of everybody in the course, and I look forward to that part of the course. So how is the course set up? Well, our course involves eight weeks. It's eight weeks in length. We'll have lectures three times during each week where we'll present the topic for the day. Also we'll have plenty of time for discussions. I'm going to post a discussion topic for everyone that will deal with each of the weeks. Those discussion topics will hopefully provide an opportunity for everyone to discuss an issue. That in some way relates to, to the topic of the week, but also gives people an opportunity to discuss and raise issues of interest. And as I said there's a high level of variation in the, in the students and we have folks that I'm sure are very experienced and I hope they'll bring that experience and knowledge to the table through these discussion periods. You'll also have a chance to take a quiz on the material to practice answering questions about the information that was presented during the week. We've also developed a course project for those of you that want to. Delve a little bit deeper into the topic. You might, you might want to pick a topic that's important to you locally on your farm or in your region, and start to describe a little bit about the problem, and some ideas that you might have for improving and making agriculture more sustainable. Everything about the course will be managed through the, the course website. So I hope you have a chance to go through and look and, and you'll find all of the information that you need to navigate through the eight weeks. I look forward to bringing this course to you, and I look forward to seeing all of the discussion about the information that we'll, we'll present during the course. So let's get started.
